Load distribution by using Web Workers for a real‐time web application

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a load distribution technique for a web server. It utilizes Web Workers, which is a new feature of Javascript.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors have been implementing a web‐based MORPG as an interactive, real‐time web application; previously, the web server alone was responsible for manipulating the behavior of all the game characters. As more users logged in, the workload on the server was increased. Hence, the authors have implemented a technique whereby the CPU load of the server is distributed among the clients.

Findings

The authors found that some caching mechanism is useful for utilizing client‐side calculation. The caching suppresses the increase of communication load. A performance evaluation reveals that the technique plays a role in decreasing the CGI latency of both low‐end server and high‐end server. The average latency is reduced to 59.5 percent of the original system.

Originality/value

Web Workers allows scripts to be executed with keeping the page response on a web browser. It is intended to be used for raising user experience. This technique utilizes Web Workers for a web server to distribute the load to its clients.

Citation

Okamoto, S. and Kohana, M. (2011), "Load distribution by using Web Workers for a real‐time web application", International Journal of Web Information Systems, Vol. 7 No. 4, pp. 381-395. https://doi.org/10.1108/17440081111187565